


Hot (Une)

by TheVeryLastValkyrie



Series: And They Fell Like Dominoes [11]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 12:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4020142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVeryLastValkyrie/pseuds/TheVeryLastValkyrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of a filthy rich boy and a clever dick girl at one of the world's most prestigious universities; of cheap wine and red plush; of betrayal, and bad blood, and her reading glasses. This time, he remembers she's fraidy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot (Une)

**Author's Note:**

> Migrated from my Tumblr. Here be F words, and a lot of other words besides.

It got hot, the way it’s not supposed to get hot in the summer when you live in London, England, in the heart of the city. Petrol fumes rise in a purple smog, dulling the stars, and most sensible people are inside with their backs to the air conditioning unit, talking and laughing, drinking complimentary wine and eating complimentary canapés and generally lacking complimentary things to say to each other (he could be back inside. He could have ice water sliding down his back instead of sweat. He _could_ ).

Annie’s breath of fresh air is just that, though – fresh air. She left the sliding door ajar, but she wasn’t inviting company, and the muggy air isn’t doing anything for her flushed face. She glows faintly, sticky under the arms, her nose dry and lightly dusted with powder. The metal handrail is blazing, but she wraps her fingers around it all the same.

(She’s afraid of heights).

“You’re afraid of heights.”

Someone in Savile Row must have told him it was alright to open an extra button. It isn’t, but he’s never really known how to pull himself together. It was endearing once, his creases, the monthly orders of new shirts because no one ever taught him how the heck to take care of himself, and she sure as heck wasn’t going to be his charlady. She was a lot of things to him, to Ollie, but now she’s a woman with a good job and an ex-fiancé damning her name in Whisky Mist or Mahiki, edging towards the end of her twenties, and he’s far more likely to kill her than the omnipresent pollution.

He stares at her arm, at the white, straight line of her left arm. He brushes it with the knuckle of his middle finger. He runs that finger all the way down to her elbow, cups the proud little nubs of bone beneath the superheated skin.

“Ollie,” she says, looking at what would have been her empire, not at him (otherwise she might recall how he made her want to be kind, and the man who was the boy who was the boy she loved doesn’t deserve her kindness). “Don’t.”

It got hot, and as awful as it sounds, it’s no longer a matter of no means no – she lets out a grudging groan of pleasure when he lifts her long hair off her damp neck, and the hint of a breeze just ghosts by, and she gets just a split second of relief. She says his name again, a warning, and he ignores her again, twisting the hank of brown into a knot around his fist. He exhales onto the nape of her neck, and that finger that left off runs all the way down to her hand, which is now clutching (at straws) mid-air. All his fingers slide over hers, between hers, feeling all four translucent curves of webbing where each joins another, then the thumb. It’s far too intimate, touching those tiny places even sunlight doesn’t touch, and nor does printer ink, and nor does anybody else. It’s pushing his luck (pushing his luck far too far, and yes, it is as awful to touch her as it sounds).

“Whatever you want to do, I’m too hot to do it.”

“I know.”

“Besides, I’m scared of heights.”

“I know that too.”

Her eyes are thickly lined, smoky. “Then why bother?”

“The pleasure,” he tells her, very calmly and carefully. “Of thinking about fucking you while you’re thinking about me fucking you might well be enough. Do we both picture it the same, do you suppose, or do you keep your dress on?”

“Go fuck yourself, Olivier d’Athos.” But it’s no more a reflex. It’s been their standard for so long.

“I could think about loving you,” he offers. “While you’re thinking about me loving you. I could think about wanting you, going on ten years’ worth of wanting you. I could think about that, Annie, but what would happen to even pretending to be fine with it if I did?”

The tear which slides down her cheek could be a drop of sweat, but what it is is cool enough to be refreshing.

“Why don’t you just think about fucking me, then.”

And she looks at what would have been her empire, not at him (the man who is the man she loves doesn’t deserve it). She doesn’t cry, but she does damn love; she damns love indeed, and the impulse that makes her want to throw herself away for a man who doesn’t know how to iron a shirt and who wouldn’t have her if she asked.


End file.
